6 months!

Happy 1/2 Birthday to Henry!
I wanted to eat 1/2 of a cake to celebrate, but we're still a little caked out from the April and May birthday celebrations at our house.  Plus my friend Hilary got married the day after Henry's 1/2 birthday and we ate about a bazillion cupcakes at her reception.  We couldn't help ourselves, they were delicious.

Henry is absolutely loving his new found ability to sit up by himself.

He can finally reach all of the blocks we put in front of him each month.

This boy plays rough.  Those blocks didn't stand a chance.

This series of pictures is starting to pay off as a great way to see how much Henry is growing and developing each month.

A Few Six Month Factoids:

• Henry rolls to get where he wants to go.  We're getting a small taste of how much our life will change when he starts crawling.
• He is still a champion drooler and chews on whatever he can get near his mouth (he chewed on my jaw the other day... didn't know that was possible), but it doesn't look like he'll be cutting teeth anytime soon.
• To help his rashy skin we switched to organic cotton clothes, CeraVe cream lotion, and All Free and Clear detergent.  So far so good, but he's still breaking out in hives from time to time.  We're still trying to figure out what's going on with this boyo's skin.
• He constantly babbles and 'talks'.  We absolutely love it and wonder what he's trying to tell us.
• Henry loves to bang whatever he's holding on the surface in front of him.  He actually has pretty good rhythm.  I think all of the talks I gave him in utero about being a drummer like mommy are starting to pay off.
• We've had a whole bunch of 'firsts' lately:
• First time saying 'Dada' (He said 'Mama' first, but now pretty much only says 'Dada'.  Henry absolutely adores his Daddy)
• First solid food (Rice cereal.  Henry isn't so sure about the whole deal)
• First time First time with a babysitter (thanks Sunny and Justin)
• First time sitting unassisted (Henry is still a bit wobbly, but he's getting better every day)
• First roll off the couch :(  (I cried more than Henry did)
• First successful 'raspberry' (Henry has been trying to master the art of blowing a good 'raspberry' for months and was finally successful a few weeks ago).
• First haircut (Henry had a mullet and some crazy long stragglers on the sides of his head)
  
  
  And now for more photos:

"tttthpppppssssst!"

In the coming years I'm sure we'll wonder why we ever spent so much time encouraging him to blow a raspberry.

Check out this darling Swiss onesie the Burri family sent us when Henry was born.  I'm so glad we didn't wait until Henry was 9 months old to try it on him... it fit just right at 6 months.  Thanks Burri Family!
BTW, shortly after Henry hit the 6 month mark he moved into 9-12 month size clothes.  So, either our boy is on the big side or baby clothes are mislabeled.  Maybe it's a little of both.

Speaking of size, here is how Henry stacked up at his 6 month checkup:

6 month stats
17 lbs 3 oz = 50%
Height 27 inches = 75%
Head 17 inches = 50%

He loves the lifejacket we bought him for our 4th of July Lake Powell trip.

We used a lot of gear (most of which I'm sure is totally unnecessary) to set up for Henry's first attempt at solid food:  bumbo seat with tray, painters tarp on the floor to catch the mess, a few different kinds of bibs, a whole bunch of spoons, grubbies for Mom and Dad, and the camera on a tripod.  

It was pretty hard to get our boy to open his mouth wide enough to get the spoon in.

Henry made some pretty funny faces as he spit out any cereal we managed to get in his mouth.  We took lots of pictures, had lots of laughs, and gave up after several unsuccessful attempts.

Check out this sweet photo of the gyro bowl in action.  Henry just happened to send the bowl flying just as the timer on our camera went off.  As advertised, the bowl stays open side up no matter what.  Thanks to my friends at Lifetime for giving us such a cool baby gift.

We tried giving Henry cereal again the next day and were hopeful after he nommed on the first spoon full of mush.

Sadly every attempt thereafter was a total disaster.

I think we have our work cut out for us.  This boy does NOT love being spoon fed.

Boyo's first haircut went off without a hitch, but seeing this picture of scissors so close to my baby makes me really nervous.

 We got a really sweet bike trailer on sale at REI and we are stoked.  Now we just need to find a helmet for Henry and we're all set for family bike rides.

Each day Henry gets better at sitting up on his own, but we still like to put a couple of pillows behind him b/c we're overprotective like that.

And finally, one of the greatest events of Henry's 6th month:  Nat, Greg, and Ryan met us for our first trip to the Denver Cafe Rio.  It's about 45 minutes away from our house, but that sweet sweet pork salad goodness is well worth the drive.

Note: I ate at Cafe Rio 3 or 4 times a week when I was pregnant with Henry (I swear they put an addictive chemical in their food that is especially delicious to pregnant women).  I hope they build a Cafe Rio closer to our house before we decide to make Henry a sibling so I don't end up putting a bazillion miles on the car.